The present invention relates to cup holders, that is to say to holders for beverage cups. The invention is particularly concerned with holders for beverage cups of the type which are of upwardly divergent frusto-conical shape and these are typically made of waxed paper or card and are commonly used in cafes and the like for the sale of beverages, particularly hot beverages, such tea, coffee, soup or noodles etc., for consumption on or off the premises.
Such cups are very advantageous because they are cheap and effective and they can readily be formed into nested stacks and thus require relatively little storage space. They are also biodegradable, in contrast to cups made of plastic material. However, they are not very easy to carry due to the fact that they are flexible and structurally weak and spillages therefore frequently occur. This problem is exacerbated when the beverage to be served is hot because the thermal insulation properties of such cups are relatively poor. Purchasers therefore frequently burn their fingers when carrying such cups filled with the hot beverage and this is not only uncomfortable but also increases the problem of spillages occurring.
In order to obviate these problems, it is known to use a holder or tray of folded/pulped cardboard material, which defines a number of recesses for accommodating cups. This largely obviates the problem of burning one's fingers when the cups are filled with a hot beverage but some trays have to be manually folded from flat cardboard blanks and this is quite time-consuming Further more, the tray blanks have to be stored and many retail outlets simply do not have the storage space available for such relatively bulky articles. Finally, the trays are generally disposed of after being used only once and this means that they add considerably to the overhead expenses of the retail outlet in question and also represent an unacceptable environmental burden in that they must all be subsequently disposed of in a landfill or alternatively recycled.
The above problems are at least partially overcome by the cup holder disclosed in GB2471872. This cup holder comprises a collar and a handle and the collar is a continuous loop of flexible sheet material in which two opposed holes are formed and which, in use, extends around and engages the outer surface of a cup. The handle comprises an elongate strip of flexible sheet material, integral with each end of which are two elongate lugs which extend divergently. The maximum distance between the outer edges of the lugs is greater than the maximum dimension of the holes in the direction of the length of the collar. The width of each lug is less than the said maximum dimension of the holes. The two ends of the handle are pivotally received in respective holes with the two lugs on one side of the collar and the adjacent portion of the handle being on the other side of the collar. Such a cup holder is associated with a considerable advantage by comparison with the known holder or tray referred to above, not least because it is considerably less bulky and therefore occupies very much less storage space and maybe disposed of more simply and cheaply. However, this known cup holder comprises two separate components and these have to be assembled. This is done by folding one of the lugs at each end of the handle over onto the other lug, passing the two lugs together through the associated hole in the collar and then unfolding the two lugs. The fact that the width of the two lugs in the unfolded state is greater than the diameter of the whole means that the handle is pivotally retained on the collar. However, the assembly process must in general be performed in the retail outlet, this is to say only shortly before the cup holder is used, because it is not preferable to store such cup holders in an assembled state.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a cup holder which can be provided in an assembled and ready to use state, thereby saving time for the retailer or the like and it is a further object to provide such a cup holder which comprises only a single piece of material.